No comic today, but I wanted to point out something I found online today. Hey You Guys! is a charity movie screening and silent auction benefitting DonorsChoose.org and they’re having an auction on Monday. If you are looking for something cool to hanging your wall this holiday season, there are some truly amazing pieces of 1980’s movie inspired artworkon offer... including this one from Superman II that made me geek and laugh when I saw it.



Now seems as good a time as any to mention my own DonorsChoose profile; At this festive season of the year, it is more than desirable to make some slight provision for the poor... and in many respects, that includes our nation’s public schools. I have three project currently awaiting funding: one to benefit my classroom’s small lending library, another that looks to expand that library’s insanely popular graphic novel selections, and a proposal for a digital camera to re-start our school’s lapsed student newspaper. A great way to support the comic is to donate to my classroom!

hello all,

i have removed the postings of artwork from the community and the poster has been banned. if i missed any posts, please let me know, but i think i got them all. sorry for the delay; i am not on LJ much these days.

as a reminder to everyone, this community is not for the posting of your personal artwork.

also: is anyone interested in taking over for me as moderator for this community? due to working 80+ hours a week, unfortunately i no longer have the time to devote to maintaining it. but i'd hate to see this community die out or be overrun with spam. let me know if you're interested.

Nikki Finke posted this on her blog under the title "Actors Will Do Anything To Land A Role." Since my immediate response is more "Oh, cool! I wanna try!" I'm thinking that "Because They Are, As A Rule, Insane" would probably be an accurate subtitle.

( T.J. Miller Auditions for Yogi the Bear )

They ran a few old episodes from different seasons on bravo today. It got me thinking what guest judges would round out a perfect season for you. 14 judges.

here is my list.

1. Anthony Bourdain - I know he won't come back but pretty please with a cherry on top!

2. Eric Ripert - He's probably absent this season because of Jen I don't mind that but I want him back next season

3. Micheal Symon - because I think he is fun

4. Food Critic Jeffery Stiengarten - because he is so.... well, critical

5. Aaron Sanchez

6. Christina Tosi for a dessert challenge

7. Traci De Jardin

8. Cat Cora

9. Rick Bayless

10. Alton Brown

11. Mario Batali

12. John Besh

13. Neil Patrick Harris

14. Chris Cosentino

What are yours?

My current Facebook drawing. Hope everyone here in America is having a nice Thanksgiving and, if you're don't happen to be American, a wonderful Thursday.

I know I sort of beat a dead horse with this week’s batch of comics. I felt like they were a little self-indulgent, but then I remembered that this whole concept of drawing a comic about my life is, in and of itself, the height of self-indulgence, so I just went ahead and indulged.

Tweaks and enhancements

1. In order to improve site security, we've temporarily suspended the ability to change passwords for old email addresses that haven't been used for over six months. For further information and support, please visit our customer care page.
2. We've launched a new mobile site with an enhanced UI at m.livejournal.com. View spotlights, post to your journal, read and post to friends pages, and more, no matter where you roam! Please let us know what you think, since this will eventually replace our existing mobile interface. You can update your mobile preferences on your account page.
3. We've upgraded from Beacon to Facebook Connect to improve dual posting. If you've already signed up for Facebook Beacon, you're good to go. If you wish to update your Facebook Connect setting, visit Account Privacy settings and scroll down to the option labeled: "Send information about my updates to Facebook." You can choose Always or Ask each time. Remember to save (on the bottom left corner of the page). To learn more, check out FAQ 249. While we're on the subject, if you happen to be visiting that side of town, please join our Facebook fan page for a touch of home away from home.
4. You'll now receive the Writer's Block Question of the Day in the body of email notifications. To sign up for Writer's Block notifications, visit writersblock and choose the Watch Community option. Next, update your Writer's Block notification settings by checking the box to the right of "Someone posts a new entry to writersblock."
5. Paid and permanent users can now view, add, and edit Notes of commenters. Notes will appear beside the username of comment posters (instead of stars) on S1-themed comment pages.

Send some lovin' thanks to your friends with our holiday vgifts!

Photos of the week

We're so delighted with the immense talent of our growing, global lj_photophile community that we've decided to introduce a poll. Each week, we'll choose a half-dozen photos (based on user comments and staff feedback) and ask you to select a photo of the week. The winning photo will be announced in the next newsletter. If possible, please limit photo size to 350x350 to ensure that images display properly on friends pages. We want to thank you again (and again!) for sharing your passion.

Check out this week's photo poll and more fantastic user content after the jump!

( Read more... )

Curtains

Thanks for joining us. To our American friends, have a fantastic Thanksgiving. To all of our international neighbors, we'll eat a little extra for you!

Episode 10.04 is now "airing" at the Virtual Gilmore website.

"Here's Tweetin' At You, Kid" written by robinpoppins and sosmitten.

Go on over to read it, then follow the link back here to tell us what you think.

Episode 10.04 "Here's Tweetin' At You, Kid"

Ellie's a little under the weather, which is causing scheduling complications for Luke and Lorelai, but that isn't the only change in the air. Luke's looking at a surprising potential employee, someone other than Rory has noticed Kevin's charms, and Richard's found a whole new way to communicate with the younger generation. Hey, here's Tweetin' at you, kid!

Airs Tuesday, Nov. 24th, at 8PM EST

As reported over at melancholydanes, someone in Brazil did a virtually shot-for-shot remake of Slings & Arrows, complete with the same incidental music!

The whole thing is on YouTube; the post linked above includes its version of a few of the original's most memorable moments. (If you know the show, you really don't need to know Portuguese.) I agree with the OP that the Ophelia coaching scene isn't quite up there (though the Claire cracks me up), but the "thunder and lightning" opening is pretty shiver-worthy. I am curious to watch more of it, and see if maybe this guy shines brightest in different moments from Paul Gross. There's also the fact that the latter has about a 19 Charisma, of course, but still.

A small three part experiment in this run-up to Thanksgiving break.

It's Sunday, so I will once again point you over to my other website if you're interested in seeing my weekly chalkboard doodles. This week I did a bunch of DC Comics characters.

Yesterday's Evil Cough and generally oogyness continue today. Did the responsible thing and took my temp, which was just over 100. Ergo, I shall not be bringing the plague to Villa Verone tonight.

We're skipping a couple weeks due to other events at the restaurant, so I'll hope to see people on December 13 instead.

In the meantime, I'm settling in with all manner of hot fluids, warm blankets, fun TV, and hopefully a sliver of focus to work on some web updates.

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/2009/11/hopeline.html

-----Email Message-----
Subject: thank you

Frank,

This past Friday night I found myself in a black hole of depression and I didn't know how I was going to make it through the night. Not knowing where to turn and feeling like I couldn't stop. I remembered seeing the Hopeline phone number in the front of your book. I talked with someone there for 2 and a half hours and I truly feel that they saved my life.

Thank you for the book, thank Hopeline for being there, and thank the people that send in their postcards so that others know they are not alone with their secrets.


-Casie (with permission)

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/2009/11/sunday-secrets_22.html

PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people
mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard.



-----Email Message-----

The real reason I do want to have kids is that if I do get divorced or my future husband dies, I won't be lonely and I can meet new people through them.










(Secret posted last week) The morning after you hit our 10-year old daughter, we all stood there and watched as a fan asked for your autograph.

















-----Email Message-----
I've been clean for years but can't listen to Lou Reed's Heroin because it makes me feel like I've relapsed.







See More Secrets. Follow PostSecret on Twitter.












-----Email Message-----

I actually enjoy sitting in the middle seat on an airplane because I'm so starved for any kind of touch/contact.












The new book is available from bookstores and online.

The new book is available from bookstores and online.

The good news is that it's "just" a cold. I'm not achy or feverish and my nose hasn't been keeping me up at night. But I feel like a total zombie. I'm sure that having my monthly right now isn't helping with the whole energy drain thing, either. I just want to curl up and sleep for a million years.

When it came to action figures, by 1993, I was caught in a pre-adolescent rundown. At twelve years old, I still desperately wanted to continue playing with my X-Men and Aliens figures but was getting the sense that it was time to put childish things away. Becoming a toy collector was a great way to split the difference between my love of toys and my worry that I would be ridiculed for being interested in toys.

The problem with this scenario was two-fold. Firstly... where I was living, distribution of the toys I was interested in owning was spotty at best. I vividly remember the frustration of pawing my way through aisles of unsold Flintstones and Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers looking for just ONE Jack Skellington toy, only to come up empty-handed. This is still a problem today!

The other thing holding me back from being a first-rate collector is that I had absolutely no restraint when it came to keeping figures in the box. Although I would usually make a passing attempt at keeping a toy mint in the box after buying it, only a few days after it would inevitably be ripped from its packaging.

These two conflicting toy desires came to a head in the last weeks of '93 when I, flush with cash, stumbled on a Wal-Mart with a COMPLETE set of Kenner's Legend of the Batman action figures for sale. I'm sure these toys haven't aged well, but the first series of Legend of the Batman were, I think, pretty damn awesome. Instead of giving kids endless variations on Batman, Legend of the Batman gave us different versions of Batman.

This will be a fine distinction to most people I suppose, but it's one that always bugged the heck out of me as a kid. I neverwanted fifty versions of the same Batman ("Oh, here's one with his Arctic Blast suit, and here's one with his Lava Walk suit!"), I wanted different BatMEN. Legend of the Batman fit that bill, essentially giving kids the Elseworlds versions of Batman. This way I could have a plain ol' normal Batman standing next to a Batman with a whacked-out robot theme and it made sense to me.

The first series included a lot of characters that fans had been dying to see cast in plastic for years, including Nightwing. I had wanted a Nightwing figure ever since the Eighties. I owned a ToyBiz Batman and Robin around the time that the Tim Burton flick hit theaters, and I was comics-savvy enough to know that Nightwing was the original Robin all grown up... but there were no figures of the character.

Further, finding the not-Batman characters in any toy line was always an unbelievable pain in the neck. I always imagined even if Kenner DID make a Nightwing figure, it would be impossible for me to find.


...and yet, there he was, along with the rest of the first series, including Catwoman, Knightquest Batman, and a couple of other genuinely cool variations on the Batman Theme (Cyborg Batman is one I remember pretty vividly). I bought them all, as I was flush with Christmas money from various relatives.

Then the waiting began. I knew I should leave them carded. I knew they'd be a great collectable someday. I put them up in my closet and tried to busy myself with other things. After about two days, I couldn't hold out any longer and decided to take just ONE out of the box. The choice was pretty easy.

I don't know that these toys hold up today. They suffer from that annoying super-posed look that really inhibits play; Nightwing is always crouched in permanent fighting stance, one hand opened to hold his ridiculous large and yellow rocket launcher. Still, the toy really held my attention. I loved the fact that the yellow armor that hung over Nightwing's shoulders was removable; it was fun to "suit him up" when he was about to go fight whatever random toys I used as villains for my characters (castoff Ninja Turtles, mostly). Still, I had quite a bit of fun with Nightwing back then. He's earned permanent display in my classroom where he and a collection of old toys from my childhood sit on top of one of my chalkboards.

I probably made the right call, seeing as you can find these toys for about $3 bucks if you look on Amazon.com.
.........

I don't know if this is of use to anyone, but in the past month I've become obsessed with the website Slick Dealss. It's sort of a clearinghouse for good sales and deals across the Internet and beyond. I've seen some truly good stuff that's well beyond my means as a lowly public school teacher with two young children and a mortgage, but there have been some awesome stuff I've been able to take advantage of. They usually have about two or three amazing deals on magazine subscriptions a week, and I subscribed to a couple for my classroom, like Nintendo Power.

This week they had a promotional code for a free Papa John's pizza that totally worked- we got a pie for the cost of delivery!

Anyway, with the holidays coming up, there have been all sorts of "slick deals". If nothing else, it's a fun site to check out every once and awhile.

NOOOOOOOOOO!

( spoiler... )

Our next-door neighbor is currently in the process of cleaning out his house. He's taken a real shine to my son and every couple of days, he catches us outside and gives us some kind of toy or book he's come across for Elliot to play with. A few weeks ago, he gave Elliot a bunch of Paint by Water books. I used to love these as a kid, but I haven't seen them very much in recent years.

One of the fun things about these books is that they're vintage 1980's. Included in the collection are Disney's The Fox and the Hound, Emmett Kelly (the sad creepy clown) and, much to my delight, She-Ra. Elliot and I painted a couple together when I was sick a few weeks ago.





Bow (who appears in both of these pictures) was sort of the Rhett Butler to She-Ra's Scarlet O'Hara. I always thought his costume was unbelievable feminine, but I never knew that he shot arrows with HEART tips until we did these paintings together. How unbelievably non-threatening! Especially when you consider that the OTHER side of a heart would make a perfect arrowtip! What was he thinking?!?!